At a Confucius Classroom of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Slovakia, teachers and students recently took a “health maintenance class on the tip of the tongue”. Codonopsis pilosula and spare ribs, baked pumpkins with lilies in a dry pot, tofu rolls wrapped in purple perilla... The multilingual short video series The Great Traditional Chinese Medicine made its debut at the Confucius Classroom of Traditional Chinese Medicine, arousing the appetite of foreign students with exquisite medicated cuisines displayed on the screen.

The short video played in class is Medicated Diet Nourishes Health and Wellness, an episode from the short video series The Great Traditional Chinese Medicine. This episode tells the story of a Russian international student named Khlybova Valeriia who had an immersive experience of medicated diet preparation in a medicinal kitchen. The short video presents the unique charm of medicated diet via visualization means, with delicate frames and a huge quantity of close-up shots. Teachers and students sat in front of the big screen, curiously watching every procedure of making a medicated diet, from selecting materials, dispensing, to cooking. They sometimes whispered to each other, sharing their initial impressions of medicated diet culture.

“Medicated diet is different from what we usually eat, and it seems healthy,” said Victoria, a student from the Confucius Classroom of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The combination of food and traditional Chinese medicine allows people to enjoy delicious cuisines while also eating healthily, which has sparked her strong interest in the culture of medicated diet. Silvia, another student, expressed that she further understood “the homology of medicine and food” in traditional Chinese medicine. “We can nourish our body by eating medicated cuisines, which is worth learning from in our daily diet”, she said.

The Confucius Classroom of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly established by Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Slovak Medical University was officially unveiled in September 2016. It has long been committed to promoting the traditional Chinese medicine culture internationally and taking an active part in holding a variety of experience activities, such as child tuina (a form of Chinese therapeutic massage). Students from the Confucius Classroom have developed a greater interest in traditional Chinese medicine culture after watching the short video series The Great Traditional Chinese Medicine, expressing their desire to experience the charm of traditional Chinese medicine culture in Liaoning firsthand one day.